Herman Cain embraces Michele Bachmann during a rally of Christian home-school advocates at the Iowa Capitol on March 23. Both were just presidential prospects at the time. (Photo by Dave Davidson/Prezography.com )

Presidential candidate Herman Cain isn’t letting distractions from former employees slow his momentum – and in fact he’s considering Newt Gingrich as his running mate, he told an Iowa radio host this afternoon.

“Newt Gingrich is looking well because since he left Congress he’s had a chance to recover,” Cain said. “… The thing I would look for the most is someone who’s not afraid to challenge the system. Yes, I need someone to help me navigate the legislative process but I don’t want someone to say, ‘Here’s how it works in Washington, D.C.’”

Conway told The Des Moines Register after the interview that it was interesting to hear Cain say how attractive Gingrich, a fellow Republican from Georgia, would be as a running mate.

“The Cain train is staying on track and we’re making sure that we don’t allow these distractions from former employees or opponents to really get us off message,” he said.

Earlier in the interview Cain said he’s being targeted with attacks now that he’s frontrunner.

“The biggest surprise is the intensity of the attacks against me because this bull’s-eye on my back has gotten bigger,” Cain said. “Some of them are attacks toward my ideas and my programs and my proposals but some of them are just downright ridiculous in terms of people are now trying to dig up things that go back 20 years in my personal life in order to distract people from the message that I have been delivering of common sense solutions.”

Cain said the pundits and political operatives said he should have dropped out in August after he finished fifth in the Iowa straw poll.

“Well, the way we continued is that the supporters who got on the Cain train, they didn’t get off. They stayed on. Yes, it was difficult to raise funds for a period especially with Romney Perry Perry Romney Perry Perry Romney in the media all the time, but eventually people came back around to getting serious about, ‘Wait a minute, do I want the media to tell me who to vote for or do I want to make up my own decision?’”